Mixed Feelings on Baby Groups

 Hi there!

It took me a while to gain the courage to take Sophie to a local baby group. After a lot of debating and encouragement from Leonard, I booked onto one online. 

I tried to find ways of getting out of it before booking and paying for it. Does it fit in with nap time? Will Sophie need a bottle? What do I take with me? But in reality, she could nap whilst there, I could feed her whilst there and I would just take whatever she would need in that time with me. But I paid the £6 and got Sophie’s name on there. 

The next afternoon, we went. Sophie napped before we went, but I was still unsure about it. I had heard how horrible baby groups could be, which didn’t help me. Anyway, we turned up, on a Tuesday afternoon for the two hour session. 

The place I had booked had two rooms. One was a normal room with different toys in and the other was a room that was almost dark, the curtains and door was shut, but all the toys lit up. It all looked incredibly nice. There was even a high chair in the dining/kitchen area so you could sit and feed your little one whilst there, which came in handy as Sophie got older. We also had a hot drink made for us when we arrived. 

I mainly stayed in the non glowy room with Sophie as she wasn’t too sure about the glow room. Sophie seemed to enjoy playing and exploring a new place. I loved to watch her take it all in. 

I went, I was able to join in the conversations and general chit chat with the other mums. I can be a shy person in a new setting and found this had increased since having Sophie. I thought it had been great, so as soon as I got home and Sophie settled, I booked onto the same session for the following week. 

After about a month, I hated it. This very same group that I would be so happy about going. Raving to Leonard about it via messenger, as he was at work. It had very quickly gone to, I hated that session and couldn’t wait until 4pm to leave. I think I may have even left earlier that same session to because of how quickly it had gone from great to horrible. This due to the fact that when I had tried to join in the conversations, I had been ignored, talked over and interrupted. I felt like I had become excluded very quickly. 

I still booked onto the session for the following week, thinking maybe it was a one off. Or that it was just because the other mums that had come in, I hadn’t seen before but they all seemed to know each other. But again, I had the same experience the following week.

I kept booking onto the session and dreading to go, but I knew it was good for Sophie for us to be able to get out of the house and explore some different toys.

Every week, I walked in, said hiya, and was ignored straight away. I could have had more of a conversation with a brick wall (and less funny looks). It even got to the point that I went in and sat down with Sophie and then someone else would come in and sit straight in front of us, excluding us from the rest of the group. Or they would sit around in a smaller circle so anyone that wasn’t with them, clearly wasn’t with them. It even got to the point that them and their kids were taking other toys from the room so they could play with in their circle and no one else could, even taking toys from Sophie that she was clearly playing with. Yes the parents did this  too! But what do you do in this situation? I don’t want to start any arguments. 

I still  continued to go, as these same people didn’t always show up, just did most of the time. When Sophie had started to furniture cruise and pull herself up, she had done this on a toy divider type box that was placed in the centre of the room, only to be pushed down by one of their little ones. 

I eventually returned to work and was quite glad that this meant that we would no longer go to these sessions as Sophie would then be at nursery. 

This is just my experience at the first baby group that I had taken Sophie to. But it was enough for me to consider not trying to find any others. There aren’t many in our area either. There was another group that I did try and it was SO much better! I might cover that in another post, a group that we actually enjoyed. 

I have thought about giving this place another go. Since I’ve returned to work, the original session has been axed. Sophie would now be too old for that session anyway as it was 0-12 months. But they do run other groups, that at the time were a bit too old for Sophie. They’ve also cut the prices in half. I’ll be sure to update if we do end up going back. 

How do you feel about going to baby groups?